literary departures



 
  literature
Louse by David Grand

Father believed that the universe was a gigantic clockworks, brilliantly lit. But it's not. It's an endless sea of darkness moving beneath a dark sky, between which, isolate bits of light, we constantly rise and fall. We pass between sea and sky with unaccountable, humiliating ease, as if there were no firmament between the firmaments, no above or below, here or there, now or then, with only the feeble conventions of language, our contrived principles, and our love of one another's light to keep our own light from going out: abandon any one of them, and we dissolve in darkness like salt in water.

--Russell Banks from Cloudsplitter

When I have a little money, I buy books; if any is left, I buy food and clothing.

--Erasmus



I read a lot. As much as the net can offer, reading books and browsing in bookstores remain favourite pastimes of mine. As a matter of fact, taking a book to bed can be just as fun as taking a person. Heck, perhaps even more at times, especially in the long run. Although literary resources on the net are somewhat dismal compared to other subjects, included here are some interesting links which may provide a hint of what I'm partial to in terms of reading material. You may also find some linguistics stuff here. For more information on and links to periodicals and journals, check out my media page.



I read mostly non-fiction these days (despite the fact that for the past dozen years or so, I've been obsessed with Dan Chaon, Russell Banks, Nick Hornby, William Gibson, David Mitchell, Murakami Haruki, and George Saunders, along with my usual staple of current science fiction), but here are my DIBs (Desert Island Books) for both fiction and non-fiction categories, in no particular order. Yes, these lists are inherently quite silly and meaningless, but still somehow fun to think about when you're lying awake in the middle of the night, and can't fall asleep.



FICTION
  1. Empire of the Sun (1984), J.G. Ballard. Great insight on the true nature of human beings.
  2. High-Rise (1977), J.G. Ballard. Taking place entirely in a high rise apartment which acts as an isolated microcosm reflecting human society at large, this novel offers more insightful, albeit pessimistic, examinations on human nature. Think Lord of the Flies in a big condo.
  3. Continental Drift (1985), Russell Banks. This modern Great American Novel meditates on the monumental tragedy of the lives of ordinary folks from two very different parts of the world as they slowly but inexorably collide.
  4. Disgrace (1999), J.M. Coetzee. With devastating effect, he uses words like a surgeon wields a scalpel: clean, precise, deliberate, and with economy. With regard to this book, I'm fascinated by how people, particularly those who are perhaps too smart for their own good, cope with cruel circumstances.
  5. Neuromancer (1984), William Gibson. While his subsequent books Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive may have been better written and have more compelling plots, there's nothing like the feeling of reading something that's truly new and original. Like for many people, this book has allowed my imagination to run quite far, and in the process, it has helped me develop my aesthetic sensibilities.
  6. Lord of the Flies (1954), William Golding. Yes, it was good in high school, and it's still cool now. Definitely truth-about-human nature stuff.
  7. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995), Murakami Haruki (Jay Rubin English translation).
  8. Genji monogatari (1987), Murasaki Shikibu (Edward G. Seidensticker's English translation of the Tale of Genji). Even though I prefer Sei Shonagon's witty and intoxicatingly gorgeous Pillow Book much more, I reckon it would not exactly qualify as "fiction." Anyway, Lady Muraskai's beautiful work is as lush and as sumptuous as the era from which it came. Take it to bed with you and just dream.
  9. Grapes of Wrath (1939), John Steinbeck. I hate having to defend this one against literary snobs who think straightforward and poignant stories about humanity's downtrodden are beneath them.
  10. A Fire upon the Deep (1992), Vernor Vinge.


NON-FICTION
  1. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (1975), Robert A. Caro.
  2. City of Quartz (1990), Mike Davis.
  3. The White Album (1979), Joan Didion. Come to think of it, perhaps this list should consist entirely of non-fiction titles of her oeuvre.
  4. The Worldly Philosophers (1999), Robert L. Heilbroner.
  5. S,M,L,XL (1995), Rem Koolhaas.
  6. The World of the Shining Prince (1964), Ivan Morris.
  7. The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (1987), Simon Schama.
  8. Makura no soshi (1967), Sei Shonagon (Ivan Morris's English translation of the Pillow Book.
  9. Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake (1983), Edward Seidensticker.
  10. Fast Food Nation (2001), Eric Schlosser.
Super Cannes by J.G. Ballard

Although it would be impossible and pointless for me to compile a non-fiction DIB list, I would like to mention that my current favourite non-fiction writers are essayists Joan Didion and Mike Davis. Both featured in the documentary Shotgun Freeway, they have managed to provide some impressive insight on California and on Los Angeles in particular. These writers (most notably in Davis's angry, cynical, and chillingly mesmerising City of Quartz), are so talented to the extent that they are able to begin to partially explain the phenomenon that is L.A. (no doubt an absolutely impossible task) in a captivatingly eloquent manner. LA needs to be explained because no matter how long you live there, you still have trouble understanding it. Simply put, it's an eternally weird, fascinating, but frightening place that demands some insight. Anyway, you will find on this page:





authors
About a Boy by Nick Hornby
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland

Sei Shonagon has the most extraordinary air of self-satisfaction. Yet, if we stop to examine those Chinese writings of hers that she so presumptuously scatters about the place, we find that they are full of imperfections. Someone who makes such an effort to be different from others is bound to fall in people's esteem, and I can only think that her future will be a hard one. She is a gifted woman, to be sure. Yet, if one gives free rein to one's emotions even under the most inappropriate circumstances, if one has to sample each interesting thing that comes along, people are bound to regard one as frivolous. And how can such things turn out well for such a woman? --Murasaki Shikibu on Sei Shonagon

  • J.G. Ballard. Although he's not as inspiring these days, his old 70s and early 80s stuff (e.g., Concrete Island, High Rise, Empire of the Sun, etc.) remains incredibly mind-boggling and disturbing. When I was growing up I thought I had him all to myself until I discovered that Ian Curtis, David Cronenberg, Steven Spielberg, and eventually even Madonna were all fans too.
  • Russell Banks writes beautiful and profound stories about Americans and the American experience. Unfortunately, compared to British writers of contemporary fiction, Americans simply don't measure up. Along with fellow Princeton writer Toni Morrison, Banks stands as a towering exception. He has true mastery of the English language. Unlike too many of our country's most celebrated and talented writers deemed by our cultural establishment, Banks never seems like he's trying to show off (e.g., Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers, and too many other youngish Americans who write admittedly entertaining stories that essentially scream, "Look how smart and talented I am!"), or writing chracters just to prove a point (e.g., Don DeLillo).
  • Dan Chaon, the American Midwesterner from Nebraska, writes stuff that haunts me to no end. I don't say this often, if at all. He often writes about down-and-out or working class people on the fringes of just getting by-- in very real circumstances that even I can relate to. However, somehow, the utter strangeness of life itself makes his output, whether short stories or novels, feel like a kind of Great Plains gothic. I'm addicted to his entire body of work.
  • J.M. Coetzee, the South African writer who has won the Booker Prize twice.
  • Douglas Coupland. Yeah, he's a bit too smug. But hey, if anybody deserves a site of own, he's the one. I don't want to have to defend him either. His pathological dislike of IKEA and occasionally gimmicky language notwithstanding, Coupland seems to be the only guy writing out there who really knows and understands exactly how twentysomethings' minds are wired-up and how they work. He thinks like us. He knows what drives us. He lives pop culture. Always tight on the pulse of the zeitgeist, he knows all about the seemingly weird and superficial things we often obsess about or contemplate on. (Incidentally, like me, he's biologically wired to sleep bewteen 03.00 A.M. and 11.00 A.M.) In addition to The Coupland File, you can find other resources devoted to him at The Ultimate Douglas Coupland Pages.

    Although most of his writings kick ass, Coupland can also slip a bit with tired lines like the following from Miss Wyoming, where Hollywood producer John Johnson explains why he likes to feed the birds:

    "They mind their own business. No bird has never tried to sneak me a screenplay or slagged me behind my back. And they still hang out with you even if your movies tank."

     Unfortunately, he also tends to get messy with the facts and details (e.g., McNuggets were actually first introduced in 1981, not 1983). At times it seems like he's trying too hard (e.g., the entire book of Life after God). One grievously inaccurate passage as well as a case of trying too hard is the following from Shampoo Planet:

    ...Paramus Park Mall, New Jersey-- one of Earth's four great mall fortresses along with the Sherman Oaks Galleria, the West Edmonton Mall, and the Ala Moana Shopping Center of Honolulu, Hawaii.

    That is so grossly outdated even for 1992 when the book was published. Everyone knows that there are a lot more cooler malls around the world than those mentioned, particularly Sherman Oaks Galleria, which is one of the biggest has-been malls in So Cal and where few self-respecting teens So Cal kids would be seen hanging out there. More logical So Cal candidates for the mighty fortress-status include South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Horton Plaza in San Diego, The Grove, or even good-old Beverly Center.

    As a matter of fact, malls are sort of out these days, at least in California, center of shopping culture in the western hemisphere. What's in are actually controlled-environments (i.e., sanitised and neutered, retail-oriented faux city-scapes made safe for middle-class families with disposable income and a healthy sense of escapism) like City Walk in Universal City or trendy and / or newly revitalised urban enclaves such as the Third Street Promenade or Old Town Pasadena or tired but still interesting Melrose. Go figure.

  • Guy Delisle is un montréalais graphic memoirist who is noted for his funny/ scary/ pointed travelogues.
  • Philip K. Dick wrote delightfully paranoid mindfuck stories.
  • Joan Didion, the ultimate mistress of auteur journalism, scares people. Sarah Vowell once called her works an "aesthetic Death Valley." During a reading at Elliott Bay in Seattle, Douglas Coupland also revealed that Joan Didion scares him. He said, "She looks like she's smoking even when she's not." For me, her intelligence, her unique voice, her carefully constructed but very convoluted complex sentences, and her mastery of the English language frighten me. (However, scripts like Up Close and Personal completely confound me; but then she readily admitted that that was a hack job.) She's full of paradoxes, and she is as interesting as her essays. In fact, and fortunately for us, most of her essays before the 1990s were more about what she wanted to tantalisingly reveal about herself than the purported subjects at hand. Ultimately, (and that infamous but extremely funny 1980 Barbara Grizzuti Harrison essay and others like the one found in Slate notwithstanding) she's still a goddess. I worship her because she makes me feel stupid. Because she is consciously able to identify connections and insights about our society that others, particularly me, by myself, will never, ever be able to, Didion affirms my dimness. I'll never be as smart as her. She wouldn't want it any other way. No matter what subjects she writes about, I, perennially a masochist, would always feel obligated to partake in her cruel lessons to us about our sorry, stupid world. Anyway, here's a favourite passage of mine in the preface to Slouching Towards Bethlehem in which she describes herself:

    My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so tempermentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.
  • Babara Ehrenreich, columnist and writer.
  • Dan Everett is a linguist whose work on the Pirahã language has affect my intellectual world view deeply, especially with regard to Chomsky's universal grammar and recursion.
  • William Faulkner was always quite quotable. My favourite: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
  • William Gibson. The most intense visual imagery that I've ever experienced came from his texts.
  • Jonathan Gold. I had been reading his food reviews in LA Weekly since I was a teenager. Some habits never change.
  • Thomas Hardy.
  • Nick Hornby has been quoted and referenced all over these pages. Yes, he’s involved with the too-smug-for-my-taste McSweeney’s cabal, but I still love him. Yes, he's indeed the bloke who wrote all these books that get made into what are essentially chick flicks for guys. I reckon ultimately this isn't very surprising when you consider the fact that he admitted that his writing is most influenced by American female writers like Lorrie Moore (!) and Anne Tyler (!!!). These intelligent writers have found their own unique and true voices, and what they often convey tend to be funny and sad at the same time. Hornby even said that these female writers changed his life. I would say that Hornby himself has touched my life, since his voice is often what I would convey myself, if I have his talent and eloquence. Reading his works is so effortless and joyous that I feel guilty. "Is this really literature?" I would find myself asking. Should I be spending my limited and valuable time reading something more serious, something whose literary stature is less in doubt. Maybe I should be tackling the latest A.S. Byatt, or make another attempt at Finnegan's Wake.
  • Miranda July manages to express herself and convey her ideas quite effectively over multiple forms of media.
  • Anne Lamott. With her conversational writing style and her frequent appearances on West Coast Live, Lamott seems like someone you already know personally for years. In a favourite moment from Traveling Mercies, she writes, "I know that a basic tenet of the Christian faith is that death is really just a major change of address..."
  • D.H. Lawrence. This is a great resource on my favourite author in high school.
  • Ursula K. LeGuin. She was the first author whom I had asked an autograph from. She also once wrote somewhere that, "It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters, in the end." It's stating the obvious, but nonetheless I like that a lot.
  • Sandra Tsing Loh now does commentary on KPCC. I really appreciate her honesty regarding her never-ending but justifiable angst about downward mobility amongst Gen-X’ers, since it’s something we can identify with, even though we're way too cool to admit it.
  • Adrian Mole. The Midlands memoirist has his own website!
  • Murakami Haruki creates fantastical worlds that are still somehow very much recognisably our own realm-- our quotidien urban environments with our cares, values, routines, and pop culture. It's not exactly science fiction, nor is it exactly magical realism. It's Murakami's unqiue brand of literature that ultimately explores how we really function as humans.
  • Vladimir Nabokov. I have only read Lolita, but I just love how delightfully loathesome, pervy, pathetic, and funny Humbert was. Words and allusions were playful putty in his mischievous hands. I feel Humbert's pain.
  • George Orwell was born Eric Blair, since he felt that in order for a writer to be completely honest, he has to (paradoxically but also quite plausibly) write under a different name. Even after the end of the Cold War, the world’s interest in him has never really waned. In fact, it may have even intensified in recent years. It would probably be giving the former too much credit when you consider the perennially troublesome Christopher Hitchens as someone of a contemporary incarnation of George Orwell. The contrarian columnist recently came out with Why Orwell Matters, which not only reiterates the obvious, but also the fact that Orwell spent much of his career criticising his fellow socialists. Louis Menand once wrote in The New Yorker that the closer you get to Orwell, the more colder and critical he became. "As a writer, he was often hardest on his allies. He was a middle class intellectual who despised the middle class, and was contemptuous of intellectuals, a Socialist whose abuse of Socialists… was a vicious as any Tory’s." He was a radical egalitarian who did everything he could to eliminate his middle class roots. He excoriated the postwar Labour government for not banning the House of Lords. Ultimately, like cranky but sexy Hitchens, Orwell was very hard to ignore. Menand observed that he had a "rare talent for making his readers feel that they were dealing not with a reporter or a columnist or a literary man-not with a writer-but with an ordinary person. His method for making people believe what he wrote was to make them believe, first of all, in him." This makes his virulent anti-Stalinist stance and legacy appealing, perhaps even inspirational, to everyone from John Birchers to all lefties everywhere throughout the ages.
  • Chuck Palahniuk calls his own website 'The Cult.' It's so appropriate.
  • C.D. Payne. More specifically, this site is dedicated to his absolutely incredible novel set in the East Bay, Youth in Revolt, which is perhaps the most hilarious novel I have ever had the pleasure of stumbling upon.
  • Sylvia Plath. As much as I am a believer in Sylvia, I also feel an indelible sense of uncomfortable recognition in Anthony Lane's following comments in the New Yorker:

    For those slouching toward middle age, Plath's poems are no longer guaranteed to provide either solace or provocation; she herself, like a war poet, was granted no middle age, and we can never know how the riper Plath might have chosen to outgrow, or even disown, the bitter fruits of her youth. Hers is a country for young men and, more obsessively, for young women; I now suffer from a constitutional aversion to her poetry, as one should to any art or writing that casts a spell on one's teenage years, and the extremity of her self-absorption, which a movie as careful and sociable as Sylvia can never properly catch, seems as likely to repel as to entrance.
  • George Saunders is perhaps my favourite new American fiction writer. His twisted but poignant, sweet and sour, and always grey sense of humour is unlike any other you've ever encountered, and he's quite a nice guy in-person too. I love him.
  • David Sedaris. There's not much here yet, but it's a good, necessary, and inevitable idea.
  • Rob Sheffield. Any (straight!) bloke who can rhapsodise as a Durannie about anything from "Cars that go boom" to Kajagoogoo rocks in my book.
  • Shakespeare Web.
  • John Steinbeck.
  • Neal Stephenson was once like William Gibson on speed. While Gibson may be a better writer with total command of the English language, Stephenson creates funnier scenarios as well as clever, believable, and often hilarious, depictions of visionary future technologies. It also seems he has now successfully got out of the sci-fi ghetto.
  • Amy Tan. She's a master of conveying the true voices of her characters. To be more specific, although many of her characters speak only Chinese, Tan renders their dialogue in English (without resorting to caricature), but in such an uncanny way that you realise without a doubt that they could only been issued from the mind of a Chinese person.
  • Tanizaki Junichiro.
  • Mark Twain.
  • Vernor Vinge writes incredible sci-fi epics, with interesting science too.
  • Voltaire.
  • Sarah Vowell, contributor to This American Life, has her columns for Salon archived here.
  • P.G. Wodehouse concocted exquisite literary soufflés of such vertiginous lightness and indifference that they become essential comfort food for all those unsentimental aesthetes who are always hungry for fun.
  • Gwendolyn Wright.



libraries
Tokyo by Donald Richie

Gentlemen should always have escorts. Even young noblemen, however handsome and charming, strike me as dull creatures if they are unescorted.

I have always regarded the position of Controller as a fine and honourable one; but it is a shame that the train of his underrobe should be so short and that he is not provided with an escort. --from ch. 34 of the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon




Publishers and retailers
Miss Wyoming by Douglas Coupland

Once I wrote down in my notebook a poem that had greatly appealed to me. Unfortunately, one of the maids saw it and recited the lines clumsily. It really is awful when someone rattles off a poem without any proper feeling.

If a servant girl says about someone, 'What a delightful gentleman he is!' one immediately looks down on him, whereas if she insulted the person in question, it would have the opposite effect. Praise from a servant can also damage a woman's reputation. Besides, people of that class always manage to express themselves badly when they are trying to say something nice. --from ch. 165-166 of the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon



  • Uitgeverij 010 Publishers.
  • Amazon, perhaps the most controversial link I have. No, really. While it has been around forever by web standards, placing its link here can be a bit of a touchy issue. While I have spent hundreds of bucks at the site, and while it remains one of the most useful resources on the web (you can easily spend hours and hours here learning about authors and artists and their output), doing business with Amazon has been somewhat of a point of contention between me and some of my friends. While I acknowledge its threat to independent bookstores (which I still do patronise regularly), I have come to value the convenience and bargains it offers. What's a poor but ravenous reader to do? Don't ask me to take sides.
  • House of Anansi is a great idiosyncratic Canadian publisher of Canadian authors only.
  • Arsenal Pulp Press is an adventurous indie based in Vancouver.
  • Birkhäuser. Publishers of works of mostly European architects.
  • Black Dog Publishing makes very nice books with lots of pictures in them.
  • Black Oak Books, Berkeley. Like Moe's and Cody's, this place was an intrinsic part of my life, especially on laundry nights when my clothes were being washed a few doors down.
  • Bloomsbury.
  • Book Soup in Weho. Before all the A and B-listers started browsing here, I've been coming here since I was a young teenager, who actually took a bus from the suburbs for two and half hours to get here.
  • Book Stacks Unlimited.
  • Books Inc. is a nice local Bay Area chain, and has now occupied the old Black Oak space in North Berkeley.
  • Booksmith on Haight.
  • Braun Publishing AG is another Swiss architecture and design publishing house.
  • Builders Booksource. Specialising in architecture, construction, and design.
  • University of California Press.
  • Jonathan Cape.
  • Chapters. Big, boring, flavourless Canadian media retailer like Borders. You can find Canada-only or Canadiana titles here. Even though their stores are sometimes admittedly convenient, they also threaten local independent bookstores. Worse yet, they don't do a very good job of promoting local or non-mainstream Canadian writing. Furthermore, these days everyone is talking about the demise of the brick and mortar bookstore, particularly big box ones like Borders. However, they, particularly Chapters, seem to be doing their best to quicken their own demise-- particularly in terms of reducing the amount of floor space devoted to their primary product-- books. They act like the big stupid American broadsheets who, inexplicably, while trying to survive in the age of the internet, respond by offering LESS of their product-- reducing the number of pages and killing staff reporters and investigative stories. The big boxes were once appealing in the sense that they offered a very broad selection of titles. Somehow they now think that in order to survive the online onslaught, they will be offering customers LESS titles. Instead, Chapters stores’ floors are increasingly and annoyingly being overtaken by home decorative accessories and lifestyle products. This just makes me want to shop there less. Now I’m completely more inclined to give my business to small independent booksellers.
  • City Lights Books. Strangely enough, it feels like I never purposefully visit this store; I only seem to wander in this place as a punter before dinner at some North Beach restaurant or after drinks with friends.
  • Cody's, one of my favourites in California and definitely the best place for new books in Berkeley. With the exception of Moe's next door, I spend more time here than in any other bookstore in my lifetime. Unfortunately, its flagship store on Telegraph closed in 2006. I used to live in a student co-op apartment complex (Rochdale and Fenwick) virtually next door, and needless to say, way too much student loans and grants went here instead of more appropriate needs elsewhere.
  • Chronicle Books. As the publishers of several interesting coffee table books, they always feature strong and competent graphic design sensibilities. Their books are also delightful objects to own too.
  • Del Rey. Random House's science fiction division.
  • Diesel is a nice store in charming Rockridge.
  • Douglas & McIntyre, a Canadian publisher in Vancouver, and they have an office in Berkeley too!
  • Drawn & Quarterly, of Montréal publishes an amazing roster of comic artists, authors, and graphic novelists.
  • Elliott Bay Book Company is Seattle's best bookstore, even though it has a lousy architecture section.
  • Ellipsis. Architectural publishers.
  • Equator Books in the new, upscale and yuppie Venice is a cool oasis with gallery space. They also like freaks, and sometimes, so should you.
  • Faber & Faber, big British publisher of mostly sophisticated books.
  • Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG).
  • Fodor's. FYI, this organisation originally started out as a cover for an intelligence gathering operation for the CIA. When I was in grade school, I devoured most of its catalogue of guides (currently revised beyond recognition), and I always thought they made better armchair reading material than actual travel guides one would use abroad.
  • Get Lost Books on Market specialises in travel.
  • Green Apple is my favourite bookstore in the City.
  • Grey Stone Books is based in Vancouver and publishes many titles, with emphasis on issues and topics concerning the environment and the Lower Mainland region.
  • Hatje Cantz Verlag, German publishers of great art, architecture, and design books.
  • Hennessey + Ingalls in Santa Monica is the best design bookstore in southern California.
  • Indigo, big Canadian retailer (same owner as Chapters) with goods and comfy amenities similar to the American Borders. However, the shelves for books are being decimated in favour of selling lifestyle products for middle class women.
  • Kinokuniya. Japan's largest bookseller has several stores in North America.
  • Kondansha. They publish books about Japan in both English and Japanese.
  • Alfred A. Knopf.
  • Last Bookstore in Los Angeles. Wow, now there's a reason to hang out in Skid Row.
  • Lonely Planet. Albeit a bit gentrified and going towards the mainstream in recent years, they are still perhaps the best travel publishers around.
  • The Magazine is an incredible San Francisco institution. This clean, well-lighted, and rather friendly store in the Tenderloin stocks back issues of various worthwhile periodicals, including tons of porn.
  • Magma Books. I stumbled upon this amazing store while looking for the Dry 201 bar on Oldham Street in Manchester. It's the kind of art and design, all-goodies bookstore that you would want to hang out in the entire day.
  • McClelland & Stewart. I think I have more titles by them on my bookshelf than just about all other Americans.
  • McNally Robinson of Winnipeg is like the Powell's empire in Portland, and like its Oregon counterpart, it really adds to the livability of that city.
  • MIT Press. Not only do they have a really cool logo, but their site is also a good place to begin surfing.
  • Moe's Books in Berkeley is perhaps my favourite bookstore in the entire world. I think I spend just as much time in here as time spent in Cal libraries. Clean, well-lighted, conveniently located next to Cody's, and open late for serious but comfortable browsing, the store has a formidable selection of both new and used books. (If you like used architecture books at prices architecture students can almost afford, definitely check this place out, and come often because there's always new stock after a few days.) I love this place so much that I think it's one of only a handful of places on earth where I truly feel like being at home and at ease. Always the loner, I think I've sepent more Saturday nights here than anywhere else during 1991-1999.
  • Munro's Books is modestly-sized despite its grand edifice. However, it's a well-curated dealer of new books.
  • O'Reilly & Associates. I'm still learning UNIX.
  • Opamp Technical Books. I remember first visiting this place with my dad when I was in junior high. I thought it was a rather strange place since it was right in the middle of a light-industrial and somewhat sketchy residential neighbourhood in Hollywood. You would never expect to find a bookstore there, and yet the place was packed with browsers, who were admittedly mostly guys. The range of subjects the store carries is astonishing. Anyway, this is the place to go if you’re hardcore and don’t want to mess around… because they don’t mess around.
  • The Other Change of Hobbit, now near Ashby BART, is a longtime Berkeley institution for science fiction and fantasy readers.
  • Pages Books and Magazines is a very cool store on Queens West, Toronto.
  • Pantheon.
  • The Paper Hound may be the best bookstore in Canada west of Winnipeg. This tiny but beautiful shop is certainly the best in British Columbia, which really isn't saying much, as most bookstores of any sort have closed in the Lower Mainland. However, fighting well above its weight class, this little store packs a lethal punch! Its quirky curatorial selections is art in and of itself.
  • Pegasus Books of Berkeley has locations on Solano as well as on Shattuck. I astonish myself on how much time I spend on browsing remainders...
  • Penguin UK.
  • Phaidon Press consistently puts out the best art and design books.
  • Phinney Books, run by Jeopardy champion Tom Nissley, is in Phinney Ridge, Seattle. The store is tiny but very well-curated, which is the whole point.
  • Powell's Books in Portland rocks my world. It's one of the best reasons to visit that fine city. Hell, it's even a good reason to live there, and we're talking about a city that's already so fucking cool that it oozes it. (Courtney Love thinks Portland is so cool she credits "the City of Roses" on her record. If Courtney thinks something is cool, you know it's gotta be legit.) Anyway, you can easily spend an entire day in Powell's main store on Burnside, where it currently occupies an entire city block. Since it sells both new and used books, Powell's is not only great for browsing, but it actually carries merchandise that I can even possibly afford.
  • Princeton Architectural Press.
  • Pulp Fiction Books of Vancouver is justifiably well-regarded, and certainly better curated than that used books behemoth that is MacLeod's.
  • Sasquatch Books, "publisher of books for and from the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and California."
  • Rand McNally.
  • Russell Books in Victoria, BC is easily the province's best book store. Not only is it large, but its stock is well-curated. You can find new, used, overstock, and antiquarian here.
  • Skylight Books. To me a good bookstore with well-edited selections really anchors the neighbourhood, and Skylight does just that. With the Los Feliz cinema, the pie shop, and Fred 62, this little shop, perhaps more than any other businesses (and yeah, even X-Large), makes the Los Feliz strip on Vermont the perfect neighbourhood centre.
  • Stacey's is quite convenient if you work in the financial district in the City and want to do some great lunchtime browsing.
  • Stone Bridge Press is a new publishing house based in Berkeley. They specialise in books about Japan and its culture.
  • Taschen. Whenever you're in L.A., be sure to stop by their Beverly Hills store designed by Philippe Starck. It's a compact space, enveloped by lacquered walnut and perfect lighting for browsing. It's almost a traditionally elegant space, as opposed to the usual erotic, avant-chic environments you'd expect from Starck.
  • William Stout Architectural Books was a favourite destination during lunchtime whenever I was working in the City.
  • Tor. Science fiction publisher.
  • Tuns Press issues releases on Canadian architects and architecture.
  • Twice Sold Tales U-District, as opposed to the Capitol Hill one. What's the deal here? They've split but kept the same name? Anyway, either one is a Seattle institution, and both of them have pussies galore! However, the latter one traditionally doesn't close between Friday night and Saturday morning. And is there a Seattle hipster who hasn't waited for a 43 while browsing the clearance book carts outside?
  • Charles E. Tuttle Company. Tuttle Publishing is a longtime American publisher of books on Japan and Asia.
  • University Book Store of University of Washington is the largest bookstore in Seattle, and it has a better architecture section than Elliott Bay. In fact, its art supply and stationery department has enough material for one to make a decent architectural model.
  • Verso Books is the stylish, left-wing publisher based in London.
  • Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena has always been reliable since I was a wee lad living in San Gabriel Valley.
  • Waterstone's is yummy and convenient if you're in that part of the world.


other literary resources
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead

It is very annoying, when one has visited Hase Temple and has retired into one's enclosure, to be disturbed by a herd of common people who come and sit outside in a row, crowded so close together that the tails of their robes fall over each other in utter disarray. I remember that once I was overcome by a great desire to go on a pilgrimage. Having made my way up the log steps, deafened by the fearful roar of the river, I hurried into my enclosure, longing to gaze upon the sacred countenance of Buddha. To my dismay, I found that a throng of commoners had settled themselves directly in front of me, where they were incessantly standing up, prostrating themselves, and squatting down again. They looked like so many basket worms as they crowded together in their hideous clothes, leaving hardly an inch of space between themselves and me. I really felt like pushing them all over sideways. --from ch 173 of the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon




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